The “analyst” is one of those loons who thinks the US and the West are out to destroy Russia. And so he’s proposing to develop weapons systems designed specifically to kill a large fraction of the population of the United States as a way to bully the US into not protesting when Russia gobbles up its neighbors.

What’s in the US? First of all, attention is drawn to Yellowstone National Park, located in the caldera of the same name supervolcano, which, according to geologists, close to the period of its activation, which occurs at a frequency of 600 thousand years. About as long ago there was its last eruption. The power of this supervolcano several orders of magnitude weaker than the Siberian, so it has not led to the eruption of mass extinction of living creatures on the planet as a whole, but for the Americas this eruption was undoubtedly disastrous. Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. Signs of growing its activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States – a country just disappears. All of its territory is covered with a thick (several meters or tens of meters) layer of ash.

Another vulnerable area of ​​the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas – the break length of 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates. It passes along the coast of the territory of the State of California, somewhere on land and partly under water. Are parallel to the faults of the San Gabriel and San Hosinto. This is an area of ​​geophysical instability generating earthquakes with a magnitude of 8.5 on the Richter scale. Impact powerful enough nuclear weapon can trigger catastrophic events that can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States on the Pacific coast-scale tsunami.

Sometimes ya gotta wonder if you’re paranoid *enough.* The one bright spot I’m seeing right now is that even while the current administration seems determined to see the US weakened, that administration will be out of office in less than two years. Hopefully to be replaced with an administration that is sane, sober, wise and devoted to keeping America strong, safe, and, hopefully, dedicated to conquering the heavens. Or at least not getting in the way of American private enterprise as *it* conquers the heavens.

A crazy goes to the russian government and says “we should consider aiming nukes at american volcanoes just in case” and the russian government replies “that is nice, now go back to your looney bin that you came from”

In america, a group of crazy guys go to the american government and says “hey we gotta attack iraq, libya, and in the future iran, over non existent WMD’s whos proof is just nonsense we just pulled out of our rears” and the american government replies “sure, why not, what could possibly go wrong?”

Jordan

Non existent WMDs? You don’t mean the ones found by both the UN and the US government?

Knigh26

You mean the stuff that almost every military in the world owns and is not the dreaded hydrogen bombs we were assured about?

allen

point me to one intel report that said “hydrogen bombs”. you can’t.

Rick

Spend some time on Huffpo and DKos, and you’ll see all of that and more, being added to the pile. Want looney bin? Stop in there for a laugh.

I’ve been lurking and trolling there for years.

allen

I try not to throw facts into places like that. it sounds like a can of beans in an empty boxcar on a bad track, the noise ends when someone says “it’s bush’s fault!!!”

Rick

it’s still fun to lob a fact grenade every now and then. Or sample their quotes when the issue changes parties, like Obama’s shifting stance on gay marriage or wars abroad, and leave them back like a flaming bag of poo on their porch.

the best loose cannons are the ones THEY fire first 🙂

Knigh26

Hmm, lemme think: oh yeah, the white house iraq group and the constant references to “mushroom clouds” by condi rice and michael gerson

So did south africa, i dont remember bombing and invading them over it…

Scottlowther

Remind me: which war did South Africa wage that it lost to the US/UN and signed an armistice stating that it would not engage in WMD programs, and then spent years making every effort to look like it was developing WMDs? I can’t seem to remember that war. But since you are comparing South Africa to Iraq WRT WMDs and subsequent invasions, clearly there must have been some largely comparable war and agreement. or otherwise you’d be just blowing irrelevant smoke.

allen

and who, precisely, was south africa threatening with nuclear weapons?

which terrorist groups did south africa promise to supply with said nuclear weapons?

go on, name them. this should be fun.

Rick

LOL when you can’t win, move the goalposts?

Next will be “where are the dreaded antimatter warheads and electron compression suitcase nukes we were assured about?”

Jim R.

He’s an idiot. Comes with the territory… lol.

Scottlowther

> non existent WMD’s whos proof is just nonsense we just pulled out of our rears”

Wow. You guys are still lying about that???

Anyway, I think you’re just in a mental twist over the fact that when the US invades a place, we give it back, while the Russians invade a place and call it theirs. See: Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Finland…

Knigh26

>you guys are still lying about that

Kettle, meet pot

>when we invade we give it back

The kingdom of hawaii and a couple of american indian tribes would like to have a word with you…

>russia invaded and now owns finland and ukraine

Thats funny, i dont see the russian flag flying over kiev and helsinki, do you?

Oh, so democrats claim that the iraq war was honkey dory? I didnt realize you believed every word of obama and his party

>incidents from centuries ago

I did not realize discussions of the past had a statute of limitation

>changing the goalposts to crimea

You claimed all of finland, ukraine and georgia is under control of the russian government, i call you out on that BS, and surprise surprise, captain autism ignores his previous statements

Scottlowther

You would do well to peruse the “How To Get Banned” post. Specifically clause 7, WRT: “You claimed all of finland, ukraine and georgia is under control of the russian government,”

Knigh26

“While the russians invade a place and call it theirs” these are literally your words and then you listed countries that are completely not under russian control. How about proof reading and thinking before posting a comment in a moment of seething rage? And how about not banning people left and right for daring to correct your errors as if you were some stalinist or social justice warrior on tumblr or twitter?

Scottlowther

How about you learn to read like an adult? If Mexico invaded San Diego and took over, it would be fair to say that “Mexico invaded the United States.” And Russia *has* invaded all the places I mentioned and claimed territory. It’s only Sith like you who think in absolutes.

> how about not banning people left and right

Which I don’t do, another lie on your part.

Grow the hell up.

allen

non-existant WMD’s..because never let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

the story clearly states US troops were destroying iraqi weapons, and weren’t told some of those weapons were….sarin gas.

which you have already claimed they didn’t have. huh. I wonder how that happened. did santa claus give it to them?

oh BTW the US hasn’t made sarin since the 1960’s. the sarin manufacturing plants used by iraq were supplied by the russians, who made the gas and continue to do so. the plants are trailer-based. the very same trailers we saw being towed to…syria.

prior to that, the syrians had to chemical warfare capability. now, they’re using a chemically identical gas on their own people.

xvdougl

Russia is a shit hole. Even Putin knows that.

jordan

Yes space co!ionization makes sense but it is going to take both the government and private industry to pull it off.

Scottlowther

Sure. Private industry could use governments money. But if you put government in charge…. well, we can see how spectacularly government has used the last 40 years to build on Apollo.

jordan

I’m not saying put government in charge, but have it be a cooperative effort between the two. The government could subsidize the infrastructure needed, something that isn’t necessarily profitable for private industry in the short-term. I’m thinking more on the lines of how the British Empire subsidized things with their trading companies. Initially space exploration will be expensive with little profits in the short-term, something private industry may not be able to afford or want to do.

Scottlowther

I prefer the US model: Forts on the frontier, resupplied by private contractors. The military is just about the only governmental organization with the funds, the gumption, the discipline and the foresight to conquer space.

While there might not be Space Injuns… well, why take the risk? We need a fort on Deimos. And Ceres. And at Clavius.

Adam

I’d be up for the Terran Empire myself.

Scottlowther

> Terran Empire

I see two things wrong with that…

Michel Van

Stuff like that happen on daily base in Russian media it became ordinariness
so called expert coming with mad and insane conspiracy theory
and total Insane solution to that “Problem”
like installing ventilators all over Russia blowing the polluted air to Europe
use of Anthrax on EU livestock, in order Russia dominate meat production in Europa
but lately more and more “Doomsday Weapons” proposal pup up in the Media

There is scheme behind it either by Government or by lunatics
That’s Russian sledgehammer method of diplomacy
The message:
That Russian take USA down in grave if there nuclear attack
and know how to destroy USA and were to hit it.

Harry Turtledove has already done a series dealing with how things go down after a supercaldera eruption. Pretty good stuff, and realistic. Skeevy people you hate, greedy selfish idiots, also survive while plenty of the hardworking and heroic don’t.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of geopolitical issues where hatreds kept under wraps by Western and Russian control explode. But as America has little left after the eruption the Russians aren’t interested. And all those unfriendly places who claim to want an America-less world, find that eating is hard when America’s surpluses are no longer available, nor her foreign aid cash.

Pretty good stuff, not the most exciting at times, but then reality isn’t gonna be exciting all the time

it does a bit too IIRC. so because neither us nor the Russians can keep a lid on the ME, there’s a small nuclear exchange. But Turtledove stays away from much of that because it doesn’t matter to North America who can’t use the oil it can’t get refined from the ME anyway.

Peter Hanely

I think Russia would like a small nuclear war in the mideast. Less competition for their oil fields.

Bold Gambit

The retaliatory strike would also effect crops. Not sure it would matter with fewer citys to feed though.

Back to the topic at hand.
According to NUKEMAP, a surface burst for a 20megaton weapon will only yield an 800 foot deep crater, but there will probably be a lot of cracking. the 20 megaton weapons allegedly removed recently from the R-36s (but still in storage) are the biggest thing Russia still has. However, it probably wouldn’t be a big effort to build a tsar bomba or two. They weren’t terribly sophisticated and would yield a 1400 foot deep crater and a local earthquake effect of 8.5+. This might remove enough weight from the magma chamber while simultaneously shaking it like a soda to cause something interesting, and by interesting I mean suck. Aiming at the Clear Lakes volcanic field, Long Valley Caldera and the base of the weak side of Mt Rainier at the same time might be advisable to get a better chance of something going off with enough force to actually cause damage on a continental scale, or at least screw Seattle.

While on the topic of crazy, dubious strike options, and nightmare fuel, could one conceivably load up an Energia derivative or Long March 9 and launch it…announce that (OOPS! It broke up during insertion and is coming down!) and thereby gain surprise for the 5-600 w-76 equivalent warheads it would actually be carrying?

B-Sabre

Back when that asteroid/meteor exploded over Siberia, there was a Russian loon (Zhirnovsky?) who claimed that the US had directed the asteroid to enter the atmosphere over Russia as a message, and that it had been shot down by Russian ABM defenses.

Now, to me, if the US can whistle up large chunks of space rock on demand and drop them any damn place they want to, the primary message delivered would seem to be “Don’t f*ck with us.”

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